The darkness of the tunnel seemed to stretch out forever; a little like the silence between us but no where near as oppressive. Even though I was an introvert, under the circumstances: trapped in dark space with a strange girl, I couldn't help but prompt a conversation:

"Where are we?"

There was no reply.

I guess I have to try harder than that...

"Do you know actually know your way out of here?"

She was no more forthcoming this time.

Guess its time to switch topics...

"Wait, were you born a rebel or did you join them later?"

"If you keep on talking I will kill you," she said without turning around.

"You already tried killing me, didn't work. And come on, I feel like it's pretty cool to be a rebel."

"You know nothing."

"Hey, I understand you fight against the government, and honestly I don't like those people either. They're just a bunch of incompetent liars anyways."

"Hmph. I don't take words from military dogs."

"Well, it's fine if you don't believe me. But think about it this way, by chatting with me, you can get information about the government out of me and that aides your rebel cause. Win–win situation for both of us, right?"

"A dog who betrays his owner is even more degrading." She turned and walked on.

"Hey, they are not my owner and to hell they do not own me. Curse them actually. If they did a better job with security in the first place, I wouldn't have lost my arm. In fact, if Soulsteel and the government were sitting in a room together, I would whoop both their asses at the same time." I said without drawing any breath in between, earning myself a quick glance from Kuro.

The air stiffened a little as we continued to walk in the darkness. Several times I almost tripped. It wasn't because of the darkness, but rather the ground was slippery and the path had become narrower.

"Your arm, and legs; how did you lose them?" Kuro voice hinted curiosity.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked with a chuckle.

She sneered at my response and went on at the same pace, so I kept talking:

"Alright I was just messing with you. My arm...well, you know the Deathwalker attack in Ayre from 2 months ago, right?"

Her pace began to slow down, but none the less she kept walking.

"I was there that time." I finished off.
She stopped in her tracks at once, turned around, and stared at me. No, she nailed them right through me with the single red glowing eye in the center of her mask. Then spoke with deep resentful tone I have never thought was humanly possible:

"The Iron Fist did not conduct such attacks. It must be the government themselves."

"So you're saying, the government is targeting its own people, then victimizing itself, which gives them a proper excuse to attack you guys?"
She was speechless for a moment, but a few seconds later she turned away and kept on walking again.

"If you know, then why do you ask?" she said with an edge of sneer.

"Well, as you can see I am conspiracy guy. It's just not really safe to speak your mind these days, with all the surveillance and stuff."

She made no comment, so I seized the chance and continued:

"I saw on a secret website before, about the truth of why the government wants to get rid of the rebels. The first rebel leader, Sayan Reins who was a solider and the senior commander of Rhir Bloodrazor during the early days of the Shadow War. It was written in the textbooks that around halfway through the war he fled and was branded a traitor for selling information to the elementals; but that was the text book of course. The article I found said that the information he uncovered was about the truth behind the Shadow War and the higher powers that controls the government. So really, he wasn't selling information, but rather pleading for help from the enemies to get rid of the internal corruption." I said.

"Then what is truth behind the Shadow War? And who are these higher powers?"

"The truth is more economically based. And they had the exact two ingredients to make it happen; manpower and a powerful enemy. In a war, you gotta make more weapons, and more weapons means more production, and more production means more in the labour force. And all this process boosts the economy through productivity as long they have sufficient resources. And not to mention, during war times it's only reasonable to spend more money on military budget than anything else, and a lot of mankind's greatest inventions have been invented during war; it's survival of the fittest after all. As for the higher powers..." my voice trailed off, as I realized Kuro had significantly slowed down, and one more step I would have ran into her back.

"It was very abstract. I couldn't open the link and the site was shut down shortly after," I finished.

"I see," she replied with a simple acknowledgment then out of the blue asked, "your arm, you lost it during the attack then."

"Yes. Though, how do I say this...?"

"That you were foolish enough to fight a Deathwalker unarmed?" she said with a sneer.

"Yeah, but I had a reason at the time."
Kuro halted in her tracks, turned, and snapped at me:

"WHAT?" she screamed. And that moment I could just imagine her expression of disbelief under that mask. "I was wrong about you being foolish, you are absolute insane."

"Well, hear me out first. I did it in order to save this girl I liked."

"I see, I understand. Did you save her in the end then?"

"Yeah, I distracted the Deathwalker away from her and took it out while unarmed. And yes, no pun intended. But also at the cost of an arm."

"She must be very important to you then."

"Yep. She is person I care most about in the world." I said, strangely looking away for some reason as I said those words.

"Does she know about it?"

Pain.

The pain of the question resonated in my mind. I gritted my teeth, to keep that word from showing up in my expression. But it was no good, emotions overwhelmed me at once, as my best effort to hide it was turn around and look down.

"No. She never even came to see me afterwards."

Hearing those words coming out of my own mouth, was both painful and relieving at the same time. I thought I was long over this, but it turned out I had no idea how deep those old scars ran across my heart. The atmosphere around me became as stiff as my emotions, no help able to reach, and no words left to comfort. All that was left was an empty husk of a man who once loved.

"As a rebel, no. I never had a relationship before. But I know girls who are younger then me and forced to marry within the Iron Fist. I was excused, because I am among the fighting personal. But the excuse the Iron Fist uses to force young women into marriage is that we need more people to fight, work and spread our cause to the world. But that is a lie. All I see is higher members of the clan using this as an excuse to take advantage and rape women."

When she paused there, I found myself staring straight at her; unblinking. Kuro, who was still her own train of thought, paid me no heed and went on:
"It makes me doubt our cause. freedom and equality for all, and everyone will be treated fairly instead of judged by their appearance."

I was just about to point out how cute she was by appearance, but then I recalled her unnatural glowing red eye, so I decided to just shut it.

"My red eye, it's a mechanical eye. My actual eye was removed at a very young age, and this eye implanted into me. If you ask me, how I was able to snipe down your comrades in all the mist, it was all because of the eye. It has a built in heat sensor and X-Ray sight, but it comes with a cost. Not long after my mechanical eye was implanted, it was found out my human eye was interfering with its capabilities. So my other eye was removed and replaced with a glass eye. Not a mechanical eye, a glass eye. Two mechanical eyes implanted together have proved to be very ineffective together."

Just as I thought her story couldn't get any sadder she went on one last time:
"In the end we are just weapons. But at the very least, you have family and friends who love and support you. If you let me choose, I would rather be an effective weapon."

She began turn and was on the move again, while I silently followed. And while I watched her back, I began to feel for the realize for the first time, right in front of me was a person whose been through worse and whom I could relate to more than anyone else in the world.

That moment the world felt like it was just the two of us.

Q: Do you consider yourself a chatty person?